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VanillaCreamKilly

Eisai Haramasukoi
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Am definitely excited that A.B.A. has finally returned after such a long absence. I'm gonna hold off on my thoughts on her inclusion here until after the last Season 3 character is revealed and released. I want to do a post reflecting on how Season 3 of Strive has been in terms of my predictions late last year, and should there be a Season 4 I want to refine my character predictions for that too.


Speaking of Season 3, there's one more spot for a character, and I'm leaning towards it either being Dizzy or Slayer. Slayer is definitely one of the most requested characters for Strive, but Dizzy isn't that far behind and also has the benefit of being pretty significant within the Guilty Gear series. She even appeared at the end of Another Story, so she could have an arcade mode that followed up on that. Looking at the last characters from previous seasons, there's Testament in Season 1, who was a sub-boss for the first two games, absent for the Xrd games, and returned with noticable character development. Season 2 had Asuka, one of the most important characters in the entire series lore and with much anticipation of what he'd be like as a fighter, and who very much feels like he could be a final boss. Following from that, having the final boss for Guilty Gear X be the last character revealed for this season would fit with them all being pretty big deals in terms of inclusion. Or they could throw a total curveball and have a character that's never been playable before, since previous seasons had at least one of those too.


In any case, I'm very happy about A.B.A. finally being back, and am looking forward to the last character reveal.

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The passing of Akira Toriyama came as much of a shock to me as it did so many other people, and it took me a while to really process it. Given that his impact on manga, anime and video game culture is so massive, and his name feels as ubiquitous to anime as Osamu Tezuka, it felt almost unthinkable for it to even happen, as though he’d naturally always be a constant the way his works are. But he was ultimately human just like the rest of us, and his loss will be felt hard along with the passing of other important manga artists like Kentaro Miura and Kazuki Takahashi in recent years. While those who knew him personally like Eiichiro Oda and Toyotarou could speak more in-depth about the kind of man he was, I’d like to share what his works meant to me.


Like many folks around my age, Dragon Ball Z was one of the first shows I watched to really introduce me to anime. Here in Australia, it aired alongside Pokémon and Digimon on a cartoon show called Cheez TV and was one of things my older brother and I were really into, even having our mum record all the episodes on video in addition to seeing all the movies. We got a lot of the games based on DBZ too, namely the Budokai and Tenkaichi games for the PS2, and definitely spent a lot of time on them. While I would branch off into other animes and not really keep up with the franchise even after it returned with Super, it was still something I was paying attention to. When Dragon Ball FighterZ was announced, I was invested in everything it was accomplishing as not just as a fighting game but as a reference-overdosed love letter to the series all the to its release. Not only that, but it also inspired me to take another crack at making a fighting game adaptation of Team Fortress 2, which I had abandoned the thought of a few years prior and am still committed to writing it all out to this day.


There was something in the official announcement of Toriyama’s passing that got to me too, and it was about how he was still working on several things with passion, and that he'd have many more things to achieve that would now go uncompleted. As someone with creative endeavors, the idea of never being able to see your dreams through to the finish really got to me. That being said, it would be completely untrue to say that Toriyama wasn’t incredibly accomplished despite what he couldn’t finish. Dragon Ball reached worldwide and introduced countless people to anime in the first place, not to mention the impact within his own country as the artist and character designer for the Dragon Quest franchise. Both these works alone inspired so many people in their creations, that the landscape of manga, anime, video games and even media outside Japan would be completely different without them. I’m not the spiritual type of person, but if there is any chance that Toriyama is in some sort of afterlife, then I hope he can at least be satisfied with the mark he’s left on the world.


Rest In Peace Akira Toriyama. Thank you for everything.

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Another year has once again flown by so quickly, and a lot has happened around the world, but for me it feels like most uneventful year I’ve had in quite a while, even when compared to other years. I’m also posting this journal post a bit earlier than I’ve done in previous years (around midnight or just after on New Year’s Day), since I’m going to be spending the last day of the year with one of my wonderful girlfriends.


Earlier this month I released a journal post speculating which characters could appear as future DLC in Guilty Gear Strive, and while it’s not my usual thing it was still a pretty big thing that took some time and effort to get done and finished. Like I mentioned there, my big writing projects are going to be on hold for a while because I’ve come to realize that trying to just hammer away at the same things for months on end has not been as productive as I had made myself believe.


That post was meant to be me trying something different for a change, and I think I want to continue doing smaller-scale project and focus on just writing stuff without constantly worrying about if it’s the most perfect version of itself that I’ve conjured in my head. It’ll still take me a while to get stuff done, but it’ll still be something, and the most important thing is helping myself try to break away from my perfectionistic mindset that has held me back for far too long now.


I made a vent-style journal post earlier this year reflecting on the things that were really getting me down, and a lot of that still applies now. It’s the usual things I’ve talked about for years now: wanting to fix my sleeping patterns, develop new hobbies and skills, be healthier, go out more, socialize more and meet new people, that kind of thing. What’s gotten to me especially this year is that I haven’t had other things take up my time or that I had to focus on like moving places or going through my transition, leaving me with a lot of free time that I feel like I’ve failed to properly do much good with.


On top of that, I’ve been even more socially isolated throughout most of the year then even past years. The only people I’ve maintained regular contact with throughout 2023 were my two girlfriends, who again have done so much to help me keep it together. My other friends and even family members however, I didn’t talk to much if at all throughout almost this entire year until just this month, when I decided to make a conscious effort to talk to them or send an email or that kind of thing before Christmas.


It was honestly quite daunting since I felt like I had to be honest with how my life’s been and how I’m feeling, and I felt very vulnerable telling them that despite having so much time in the world and opportunities to do something with myself, I had done very little. The longer I went on without saying anything to them also made it feel like it’d be more awkward when I finally did talk with them again.


But I did talk to them again, and even as I was telling them stuff that was hard to talk about, it didn’t turn out nearly as awkward or bad as my social anxiety constantly led me to believe. And it’s high time I stopped beating myself up for everything I didn’t accomplish like I’ve done for nearly the entire year and give myself credit for what I have done. Not only did I get that Guilty Gear thing done, but I also finally got around to doing something that’s become very apparent as something I’ve needed to do for a long time, and that’s to seek professional mental health help.


I started seeing a psychologist in October to see if I could get some sort of official diagnosis for neurodivergence, whether that be autism, ADHD, or OCD, or maybe even all three at once. Making progress towards figuring that out has gone at a pretty satisfying pace for me, and having someone to talk to about my struggles, whether it be recent events or things that have been hanging over me for a long time, has also done a lot of good for me.


My life hasn’t magically been fixed, and that’s not something I ever expected to happen from seeing this psychologist, but she has done a lot to help me take a step back and look at myself and my life, and how I look at those things, and slowly help me figure out a way to get my life into something I can be really happy with.


Even if this year didn’t turn out to be much of what I hoped it would be, there’s no point in continuing to dwell on it or get down about it. Time can only move forward, so I have to look to the new coming year now. I want to do more to change the habits and routines I’ve been stuck in for a long time now, and from there be able to make life into something I can really be proud of and get around to doing the things I want to get done.


Of course, it’s optimistic to just say I’ll get that done, and I know there’ll be times I “relapse” and go back to my old ways that have kept me from the stuff I’ve wanted, but I know now that it doesn’t mean all the progress I have made has gone to waste. Being kinder to myself is another thing I know I have to work on, and it won’t be easy, but it’s still worth trying.


It’s ironic that I tried to go into 2023 with this kind of attitude at the end of 2022 and how that turned out, but again, it’s still better to keep trying even if I don’t succeed to the level I hoped for. For those that still read these posts of mine, have a Happy New Year, I hope 2024 turns out to be a good year for you. Take care everybody ♥

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A couple of weeks ago I found out that Them's Fightin' Herds would be officially ceasing development after the remaining two DLC characters are completed, which also includes the rest of the planned story mode being scrapped. I was devastated as many other fans were about this news, and it was made no better by there not being any given reason as to why this was happening. I had my own speculation but could only wait for more updates on the situation from some kind of official source, and recently we have got just that, and it is not at all good news.

Oreo was working for QA until recently, and not only her but everyone on the dev team besides 3 people were all fired. The reasons why exactly it seems like she can't elaborate on too much for now, and the only people I know that are among those fired are Oreo and the last remaining composer Whitetail, based on tweets I've seen from them.


This fucking sucks, dudes. The Mane6 dev team was comprised of people who were all really passionate and hard-working on the game, having spent years to make it into what it is today. I don't know how the remaining members left are handling the situation, but I can't imagine it's very pleasant. There's also the question on how the remaining development for the game that is still happening will be handled, since so many people have been let go, including vital roles in what was already not the largest team. Two entire playable characters for a fighting game is not an easy feat, so there'd have to be new people brought on board.


With all this, we still don't have any further clarification on why all of this is happening. I could say it might have something to do with the publisher, but without any word from people that are actually involved any speculation would just be guesswork. What I do know is that it's going to be very hard for me to be able to support the game now that so many of the people that helped make it possible have been fired for what I at least feel confident in believing were unjustified reasons.


At this point all myself and the rest of the TFH community can do is continue waiting for more information about all this. As for the devs that got fired, I wish them the best of luck in finding new work to support themselves and have fulfilling careers. They all deserve better than this.

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Hey everyone, it’s been a while. The end of the year is coming up soon and once again I have made much, much less progress than I would have liked with my current writing projects. Having talked about this with my girlfriends and a psychologist I started seeing last month to help me get my life back on track, as well as doing some self-reflection, I’ve decided that rather than keep beating myself up or trying to hammer away at the same ideas for what has now been several years, I’m going to switch gears a bit. It’s been a few years since I made a journal entry on this site for anything besides updates on how my life has been. There was once a time where I wrote about other topics that had my interest, and I think it'll do me some good to try that out again. If nothing else, it’ll properly get me back in the groove of writing again and make me feel some kind of productive, which is what I really need right now.


Which brings us to the actual topic of this journal: the potential DLC characters that could show up in Guilty Gear Strive, not just for its third season, but for any future seasons that might happen. If you know me, you’ll know I’m really big into fighting games, and I have a lot of love for various fighting game series. It’s one of those cases that’s sort of like picking a favourite child, since there are so many that have so much to offer in unique ways. That said, if there was one series that I would pick as just edging out every other at the top, it’d probably be Guilty Gear. The aesthetics, the music, the gameplay, the story, and most importantly, the characters. Characters are what make fighting games and Guilty Gear is one of those series where I really like every playable character that’s appeared. Not that there’s a lot of characters in other fighting game franchises I really dislike, but I have a “take it or leave it” attitude to most.


Guilty Gear is the one series where I would wish upon a star could have every playable character throughout its legacy all appear in one game. It arguably helps that the developers themselves seem to have just as much love for every character too, not just in making every character distinct and unique from each other, but also in meaningfully developing them as characters and involving them in the major plot. Even those that would be considered joke characters like Zappa and Robo-Ky have gotten big moments and focus in the main story modes, and I can’t think of many other fighting game series that would give characters like them that kind of justice.


Of course, as much as it would be great for Strive to pull an “Everyone is Here!” like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, we do have to be realistic here. Arc System Works is arguably in the best position they’ve ever been in since their inception, with the recent success of not just Strive but also Dragon Ball FighterZ and Granblue Fantasy Versus. But even still, they aren’t the biggest game company in the world, and they’re still comparatively limited in resources and such that would help them keep pumping in character after character into the latest instalment of the series. Right now, we only know that by the end of this season that Strive will have 28 characters, the most there’s ever been in a Guilty Gear game, but not by much. XX Accent Core Plus R and Xrd Rev 2 both had 25 each, so it’d only be beating those by three. With fan-favourite Johnny released as the first of this season, there are currently three spots left open for the taking, and I’m throwing my hat in the speculation ring of who could take them.


But I’m also going to go beyond that. I know I said we should be realistic about our expectations for how many characters could show up by the end of Strive’s lifespan, but it is also fun to muse about the “what-ifs”, even when it seems beyond reality. So rather than just pick the most likely candidates for the three remaining characters of season 3, I’m going to go even further and speculate on what it could be like to have every potential character be playable in this game, and that doesn’t just include characters that have been playable before.


It's not enough for me to just speculate who’ll get in however, I also want to speculate on what each character would be like if they did get in. Each character that gets added to Strive would bring a lot with them, even outside of just gameplay. Every character in the game has their own arcade mode where they have their own things going on, relating either to their situation or their character development. There’s also a number of other characters for each of them to interact with, whether it be unique intro dialogue or win quotes, or with whoever they team up with in the arcade mode, and who they fight as their final boss (now that Nagoriyuki isn’t just being shoehorned into fighting everyone).


But of course, the gameplay is still the most crucial part, and talking about how each character could play is interesting in the context of Strive. Strive has gone out of its way to be distinct from previous entries with how it plays and how the characters fit into this new style of fighting. There’s an emphasis on “streamlining” characters, not trying to make them simplified just for its sake, but trying to get to the core of their appeal while doing away with moves that either go against that, feel redundant, don’t fit into the Strive’s style of fighting (e.g. less emphasis on aerial mobility means less air combat means most characters that had aerial special moves no longer have them), or just haven’t been fun to play against in past games.


When discussing how each character would fight, I’m mainly looking at what the “premise” of each of them has been, and how that could be kept in Strive while being fitted into it. Part of this will also consider the ludonarrative aspect: every character’s playstyle in Guilty Gear reflects their character in some way, be it personality, lore, capabilities or even the ways they’ve changed. So, when talking about how they’d fight I’ll also try to tie that into what the characters are like in terms of story and where they are at this point in the series timeline. They’ll each also have their own vocal theme that will offer a lot to unpack, but I’m not really that knowledgeable in talking about music in any way besides vibes and the impression I get listening to them, so I won’t really get into that.

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In the 15th volume of the Developer’s Backyard released last month, the results for the surveys conducted after the season 3 update dropped were released, one of them being which characters players would like to see be made playable in Strive, with each region of the world having different rankings for which characters they want in the most. It’d be simple enough to say that the most consistently high ranking characters are the ones guaranteed to get in, but I do think there’s more to consider than just that. This survey was taken after season 3 started, so the characters that are planned to release later and in development now wouldn’t have been able to take this most recent survey into account for the choices.


That said, these results certainly aren’t insignificant, and they do give me a nice enough base to go off in terms of who I discuss in which order. I determined my order based off adding up the number each character ranked in each region into a total score and having them ranked from lowest number to highest: characters that ranked 1 across multiple regions for example would naturally have a lower number, and therefore be considered more popular. Not every character appeared in all region’s rankings though, so in those cases I just decided to add 11 to the total. There’s a good number of characters that showed up in these rankings, but plenty more that didn’t show up too that I’d still like to discuss after going through the more popular characters first.


Just for some added flair to this list, I’m not only going to be showing an image of the character being discussed, but also have a link to their theme from the first game they appeared; music is a very important part of this series after all. For certain entries I’ll be going over where that isn’t very applicable for whatever reason, I’ll just use whatever I feel works best… or that I just happen to really like. Without further ado, let’s start this list with the character that ranked most popular overall.



Elphelt Valentine


Marionette – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1fv4JGQxLI

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I’m gonna be honest, this actually surprised me. I figured Elphelt would have been a bit more of a contentious character in the west, whether it be because of her design, personality or the experience of fighting her; but she’s second place in North America, and the lowest she ranked in any region was 4. Alongside her being the most popular pick, her chances of getting in are boosted by her being a vital character to the lore, having a lot of focus in the story of Revelator, and being the last remaining (living) Valentine to not be playable in Strive yet.


As for what her arcade mode could be like, the most I could imagine is her trying to adapt to human life and sort of figure herself out in that sense. Her sister Ramlethal mainly did the same thing in her vocal theme while her arcade mode was more about the events of the Another Story movie she was, and since Elphelt (or for that matter, most of the characters discussed here) wasn’t involved with any of Strive’s story, she’d only really have herself to focus on. For as much as she’s portrayed as a spunky marriage-a-holic, the story modes in the Xrd games did show that was something of a front, and that as a Valentine she still hasn’t fully grasped the concept of love like humans do.


As for who she could interact with the most obvious folks would be anyone that could be considered her family, whether that be Ramlethal, Sin, Jack-O’, Ky or Sol. Another potential character she could have significant interactions with is Happy Chaos, who is implied to be partly the reason that Ariels, Elphelt’s “mother”, was as unhinged as she was, which lead to the horrible treatment of Elphelt and her sister both.


In terms of playstyle, we already have the aforementioned Happy Chaos as Strive’s first gunslinger, albeit distinct from Elphelt in that he only has one gun and needs to keep track of bullets. To keep them differentiated from each other, I imagine El’s more varied arsenal of weapons and simplified reload system from Xrd would be retained. I can’t really think of much they would specifically change besides adjustments to her moves that would make her a bit less troublesome to fight. If they wanted to try something zany, they could restructure her instant kill from Xrd where she shoots a love bullet into her enemy’s heart into a super move that causes some kind of debuff. My buddy NightCapD suggested that could be something that forces them to move towards Elphelt or prevents them from getting away, which might seem counter-intuitive for a zoner, but she was versatile enough in Xrd where that wouldn’t be much of an issue.


There was one bit of cut content from Xrd that could also be restructured into a super: there was a model that looked like it could have been a boss-exclusive version of her, so she could possibly transform into that for a big attack of some kind. Not much else I can speculate on, but I will just say that I’ve always liked how evocative Elphelt’s moveset in Xrd felt evocative of an FPS. Sure, there are plenty of characters with arsenals of guns in other fighting games, but specific mechanics like cooking grenades, manually aiming her rifle, reloading, holding still to aim down sights, the little things added up to help her go just extra step more to feeling really unique.


! IMPORTANT ADDENDUM !

So, this list is something I’ve had planned for months now and have slowly worked on over the past few weeks, so naturally this always had the potential to become quickly outdated, especially with how the next character is confirmed to be revealed at the Game Awards 2023 coming up soon. Imagine my shock when I saw what appear to be pretty convincing leaks that confirm Elphelt to be that character. For reasons explained above, this really isn’t all that surprising, and to me what’s a bigger deal is exactly how she’s gonna be implemented, and even with what little we see here there’s still quite a bit to unpack.


First off are Elphelt’s new digs, with her bridal attire from Xrd being swapped out for what looks more like pop start outfit complete with a microphone, which might hint us towards what she’s up to. She might have moved on from her endless quest for marriage to pursuit a career as some kind of pop star icon, or perhaps even an announcer? Her story will probably give more elaboration on this.


As for how Elphelt fights, her new gun looks like an updated version of Miss Confille, but rather than shoot in a specific area that has to be manually aimed, she’s just firing a straight blast of energy like a more conventional projectile. The same gun is also used for an overhead melee attack with Elphelt tripping over her feet to attack, similar to her forward heavy slash in Xrd that used a bouquet of roses, the absence of which furthers my theory that she’s dropping the bridal theme. Her other guns aren’t shown, if she’s even going to have them in Strive.


The screenshot of Miss Confille shooting the projectile makes me wonder how much of her moveset and game plan is going to be retained from Xrd, since that’s such a big change that I’m starting to doubt if I was even remotely correct in my initial assessment that she would remain mostly unchanged. Despite that, I’m going to leave my initial predictions up anyway, both because I took the time to write it and don’t want to just throw it away, but also to show what my mindset for my predictions was. I could very well be just as wrong in my predictions for future characters, but I won’t regret writing it out anyway.



Slayer


Haven’t You Got Eyes In Your Head? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9X1Ta1jN8E

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Less surprising to me in second place is Slayer, another character that ranked 1 in a few regions and ranked 4 at the lowest. He’s similar to Johnny in the sense that he doesn’t have any big place in the story but has enough style alone that demand for his inclusion speaks for itself.


Slayer’s always been a character that’s more put together and has himself and his life figured out compared to most other GG characters, so I imagine his arcade mode would be less to do with himself and more those he interacts with. As for who that could be, there’s obviously his comrades Millia and Zato-1 from the Assassin’s Guild for him to check up on to see how they’re going, similar to that would be Potemkin where they could discuss both Potemkin as a person and also elaborate more on Slayer’s history and relationship with Gabriel.


There’s also his fellow vampire Nagoriyuki (yes, I know they’re called “Nightless” in the lore, but let’s face it, they’re just vampires), with whom he could discuss the nature of their conditions as being constantly in need of blood to survive and how they deal with that, and their philosophies of honour and Dandyism, while also ensuring their fight doesn’t get so intense it wipes out a continent from the clash of their enormous power. Another less obvious character would be Happy Chaos, since they’re both pretty similar in the sense of having overwhelming power that they deliberately hold back for the sake of a more fair and entertaining fight and like to observe the world and all that goes on with it: though Slayer is decidedly more responsible than Chaos in this regard.


Slayer changed even less between XX and Xrd besides a new follow-up to his Dandy Step and a different animation for that one big move he does, so he comes off as “figured out” in terms of gameplay (which you could say is fitting for his character). That said, I could see that big move and Footloose Journey being removed, the former because it always seemed niche, while the latter is an air-only move that might not into Strive’s decreased emphasis on air combat. Mappa Hunch and Dandy Step (along with its various follow-ups) are iconic to Slayer, so I highly doubt they’d go away or be drastically changed. Bloodsucking Universe is more interesting to consider given that not only has Nagoriyuki been using that move since the start but has a much more interesting mechanic tied to it than simply getting a bit of health back and stagger. If Slayer’s keeping that move, they could try change it to give it more interesting properties of some kind.


In terms of new moves, we’ve seen in Revelator’s story mode a bit more of what he’s capable of during his fight with Bedman (which I only now just realize is another character he could have unique dialogue and story interactions with), namely his fast regenerative abilities and even being able to control limbs after they’ve been severed. They could serve as inspiration for new moves, though I doubt he’d be given the “punch you with my severed hand from the sky move” he did, considering that would be more of a zoning tool that doesn’t fit his playstyle. In terms of supers, the three he’s always had have always been similar to each other; shooting off in a specific direction with a big damaging hitbox. They could all possibly be subsumed into one super that could have Slayer choose a direction to shoot off towards, whether it be forward, upward, downward or diagonally between those.


If they did that then it could free his other super for something more interesting, something that could relate to bloodsucking or blood manipulation, or something to do with his regenerative powers. Another possibility is to call in Sharon for an attack. We don’t really know much of what the vampire’s wife is capable of besides not dying, not being able to be possessed (as Eddie found out the hard way in one of his endings of XX), and also owning a sword according to Slayer when he’s afraid of being accused of infidelity. However, considering the other immortal we know of in the series is Raven and everything he’s capable, it’s possible Sharon’s got some tricks up her sleeve.



A.B.A.


Quicksilver – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5vM9Njq0q0

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The last character to rank 1 in any region, and three of them at that, A.B.A. stands out compared to 1st and 2nd place as she not only hasn’t been playable since the XX games, but hasn’t appeared in any capacity aside from lore entries and a passing reference by Asuka in his Strive arcade mode where he mentions using the same research that created A.B.A. to help him make his own homunculi clones; even Robo-Ky and Zappa got to appear as NPCs in Revelator’s story.


Her general appeal aside, it’s probably the fact that she hasn’t shown up in so long that has this many people asking her return, perhaps similar to like Anji, Testament and Bridget had before they became playable again, since they had also missed out on appearing in the Xrd games in some way. That’s also the biggest reason I want her in the most out of any other character myself: I really want her to make it in some way and not just be left in the 2d sprite era of GG history. Partly out of a sort of “completeness” in having every living character that’s appeared in past games show up in the recent games, but also because I really like her as a character in general. Her gothic appearance, her sad wet mew-mew personality, and how distinct her playstyle is, I just really like A.B.A.


So, what would her story be like in Strive after being absent for so long? My own reading on what Strive and the direction that Guilty Gear has gone in general with how it writes its characters is a sense of growing up. Many characters throughout the series have changed drastically in terms of attitudes, beliefs and what they want out of life, re-evaluating who they are and their goals and becoming more mature as a result. A.B.A.’s story in past games has been about her quest to give her giant living key-axe companion Paracelsus a human body so they can both be properly betrothed and live as husband and wife; the twist being that while he does care for her, Paracelsus does not return the same romantic feelings to the homunculus girl, a fact that she is either oblivious to or unwilling to accept.


With how characters are written in current Guilty Gear, it’s hard to imagine this kind of one-note characterisation still being whole-heartedly retained, especially considering the time that’s gone by between games. I imagine A.B.A.’s potential arcade mode in Strive would be her finally coming to terms with the fact that Paracelsus just isn’t interested in her like that, and how she’d go about managing that feeling of rejection and heartbreak while the two still remain on good terms.


As for who she’d interact with, the most likely option would be Faust, considering they’ve interacted before in past games (and also have similar vibes). Another character she could potentially have interactions with could be Zato-1, another person that has one-sided romantic feelings for someone else, yet still remains loyal and caring towards. Slayer also knew Paracelsus when they first encountered each other during the Crusades, so if both him and A.B.A. make it in there’s potential for interaction there too.


As for how she’d play, the main premise of her gameplan in past games is essentially that she’s the worst character in the game trying to become the best character either through a limited resource or a certain attack. I don’t think anything about this premise is too out there for Strive to have to uproot entirely, especially considering we already have the opposite with Nagoriyuki’s playstyle that revolved around being careful with the strong tools he has to make sure he doesn’t lose them and go into what’s largely a disadvantageous state.


Outside of going in and out of Moroha mode, I couldn’t truly say what special moves or super moves specifically she’d retain, which she would lose, what she’d gain, or even if it gets revamped entirely similar to Testament’s moveset. In her regular state she could still have the command dash to try get in for her command throw, and she’d definitely have attacks in Moroha mode that would do big damage with the goat-head Paracelsus, but I don’t feel confident enough in saying what the specifics could be.


There is another potential direction they could go for her playstyle though that I’ve thought of. Rather than just having two states, one bad and one good, the premise could be expanded so that she could get stronger in increments rather than all at once. A.B.A. is themed around keys and what do keys do? Unlock things. They could take a page from Susanoo from Blazblue and have it so she can fulfill certain conditions to unlock new moves for her to use as the match goes on. You could even tie that into her own growth as a character if my speculation on how they’d write her is correct; unlocking new powers one by one rather than changing completely all at once could be allegorical in a sense to her growing sense of awareness and ability to grasp nuance that would allow her to maturely accept what her relationship with Paracelsus is really like.



Dizzy


Awe Of She – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9LtKHiVRCw

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Dizzy missed out on getting 1st place in any region, but still ranked pretty consistently high, which I’m not all that shocked about. Hell, she’s a character I’m willing to bet money on will be added to this season even when she’s got three other character to compete for one of three spots. Other characters have popularity power and even story-relevant power to back up their chances, but the Gear Princess is very high up in terms of both. Her very existence is a big deal in terms of lore, and we do even see her for a moment in the post-credits scene of Another Story alongside her husband Ky, ready to announce to the world that she is the first queen of Illyria, and the first step towards peace between humans and gears.


More than likely her story in Strive will be about her revealing her presence to the world after staying hidden for so long, and all the anxieties and worries about everything that could go wrong clashing with the hopes and potential good for the world it could do or even things just not turning out so bad. Undine and Necro I could imagine being prominent in these kinds of conversations, though considering Zato-1 shadow parasite buddy Eddie has been totally silent in Strive so far, it’s possible Dizzy’s guardian could similarly be downplayed in story moments.


Much like Elphelt, the most likely characters she’d interact with would be their family members (same characters as in her section), though there are also others like Johnny, May, Testament and even Bridget that she could have unique dialogue or scenes with. There’s also potential in having her interact with the Gear Maker Asuka, not only responsible for her existence and everything that comes with that, but who knew her mother personally before she became Justice.


The broad strokes of Dizzy’s playstyle is having a bunch of projectiles to zone with, befitting of her nature as someone who would rather be left alone than fight (made most on the nose by having a move literally called “Please Leave Me Alone”), and that much could easily be retained. The main thing that changed between her moveset in XX and Xrd was having two versions of each special move: an icy Undine version and a fiery Necro version. With Strive’s willingness to cut down on moves I can imagine this aspect being dropped.


In fact, I could even see Necro being downplayed in general, perhaps to represent how his violently protective nature is no longer warranted with how much humans have grown to like Dizzy rather than fear her. Though, I also say that because if Necro is less involved, than it would mean Dizzy’s moves would be mainly ice-based, and I just like dedicated ice-users in fighting games and she’s the closest that could fit that bill: plus, she had already lost electric-based moves from XX to Xrd, so it’s not that unexpected if she lost the fire element too. Necro could still appear for her super moves like Imperial Ray, and while we’re talking about those, I can imagine there being two directions to go for her Gamma Ray: either cut it entirely considering how gimmicky it’s turned out, or heavily rework it so it’s viable but not overly damaging if it does hit.



Robo-Ky


Holy Orders? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJqEGxlNHSQ

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Another character that hasn’t been playable since the XX games but did have a surprisingly big role in Xrd’s story that did so much for his character that I wonder if it helped boost his popularity. He’s an entertaining character with a unique gameplay quirk so I’m not surprised he’s as popular as he is, though I do wonder if there’d be some dissonance between the audience of previous games and those that are just getting into Guilty Gear through Strive. Without any prior knowledge of Robo-Ky one might think of him as just a clone character of Ky Kiske, perhaps even think negatively of having another version of a character that’s already in, especially over other characters: those who do know anything about him know that they aren’t even remotely similar characters besides the name.


In terms of story, we last left off with him being a bodyless head, assisting Venom in his bakery until they get enough funds to get him a new bod. As for what that would look like, they could play it safe and just give him something similar to what he had before; alternatively, they could use the opportunity to go nuts with a new look, which wouldn’t be out of place for Robo-Ky. With his new body his arcade mode could be him going out find ways to bring in customers for the bakery, albeit in comical and potentially destructive ways, which would fit tonally with who he is. That’s not to say there wouldn’t be anything meaningful though, since Revelator’s story showed he was surprisingly insightful and understanding as a person.


As for who he’d interact with, he could come across and chat with Venom’s former allies Millia, Zato and Slayer, and tell them about how him and his bakery are going, especially since Robo-Ky owes as much gratitude to Zato as Venom for giving them it in the first place. He could also have an awkward run-in with Bedman, who may not have been killed by Robo-Ky, but he did destroy the bed to set up the finishing blow.


For a deeper cut, we could have him be confronted by Johnny for his connections to Crow Kuwabara: Robo-Ky’s creator who appeared in the XX games story mode and worked for the P.W.A.B., later revealed to be a subsidiary of the Conclave, and the one who killed Johnny’s master. Robo-Ky might not know much about where Crow is at now, but Johnny does still have a bone to pick. There’s also the original Ky too but given how little he considers of his robotic counterpart, it’s hard to imagine them having much in the way of interactions despite being one being an attempt to imitate the other.


Asuka’s release and gameplay in Strive feels like an indication that we’re now reaching a turning point in how complex and out there that character’s moves and mechanics can be from this point. I bring this up of course in reference to Robo-Ky’s unique gameplay systems, the electricity gauge and heat meter. The electricity gauge was his replacement for tension, and if they’re willing to get more experimental with characters then he could retain that, though that would have to keep in mind new gameplay stuff around the tension gauge in Strive like the wall break bonus: perhaps doing so for Robo-Ky would make his electric mats give him faster charge.


The heat meter might be something they leave behind for the sake of being less complex, but Robo-Ky overheating and exploding from his own attacks is comical in a way that’s fitting and feels worth keeping for that alone. Other than that, most of his specials were always straightforward and don’t feel like they need to be changed too much, though of course this is all assuming he has a similar body to what he had before. As mentioned before, it’s possible that he gets an entirely new body, and by that virtue a completely new moveset, then the sky’s the limit with how he could play. There is one other potential thing to consider, but it’s so far out there that it feels unlikely, and something I’ll elaborate on more much later down the line.



Jam Kuradoberi


Babel Nose – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHUwqDK6iTI

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6th place might not be the highest but it’s still a pretty good chance, especially considering that according to things that have been found in the files of Strive, she was actually intended to be DLC for season 1 at one point, up to having a new model for this game. This isn’t to say it would be as easy as just finishing what’s left, we still don’t know how far into development she was, but I do feel it does help her chances.


As far as story and arcade mode goes, Jam is comparatively a much less complicated character than others in the series. She’s a martial arts-using chef who has the constant misfortune of her restaurant burning down all the time and having to go and get money for it; it’s hard to imagine her arcade mode isn’t just more of the same or at least something similarly lower stakes comparatively. This isn’t at all to mean it will be lacking in some kind of substance though, if her arcade story in Revelator is anything to go by.


Of all characters she ends up spending a lot of time with Jack-O’ as she explores the outside world for the first time and end up having a surprisingly poignant moment. When Jack-O’ asks Jam how hard it must be to deal with having her restaurant burn down, Jam suddenly trips her down out of nowhere, and when she gets up and angrily asks why Jam did that, the chef points out that she got up off the ground rather than cry like a child. She reveals this as a metaphor for life: at some point something’s going to knock you down and it’s not going to be fair, but you can’t just stay on the ground forever. At some point you have to get up and keep going, because that’s the only thing you really can do; that’s what being a human is about.


This moment actually resonates a lot with Guilty Gear, its world and its characters. The setting of Guilty Gear is one where humanity just barely survived total extinction, and yet not only does it persist and survive, but also thrive and live and find things to find joy in. Ky even tells Jack-O’ during Strive’s story that everyone has “necessary frivolities”, things that blur the line between wants and needs, that shows that humanity has managed to pick itself up past the point of having to worry about what’s just necessary for survival. Many characters that we play as are people that have gone through terrible upbringings or experienced terrible things, doubting themselves and who they are and struggling, yet still being able to persist and find their own happiness. In that regard, Jam actually exemplifies a lot of what Guilty Gear is about and what it tries to say, despite not being as complicated of a character as the series is infamously known for.


As for who she could interact with, there’s obviously her friendship with Jack-O’ that could continue after the latter’s character development in Strive, or she could meet up again with Bridget and see how much she’s grown. A few characters I think it would be interesting to have her interact with would be Ky, Dizzy and Sin. Ky was someone she had a crush on that ended up falling through after he became engaged with Dizzy, which her arcade intro in Xrd showed she was pretty bummed about.


Even more than those two, I think the most interesting character she could interact with is Sin; the living proof that she had lost the love wars, yet also a man who’s already to eat as much as possible, with Jam of course being able to sate that need. It’s easy to imagine how they’d come to know each other, and through giving Sin a lot to eat, Jam could feel fulfilled in her own way, like she’s doing something for Ky in providing for his son. That said, I also wouldn’t put it past Jam to see Sin as a romantic replacement for Ky and try to get to his heart through his stomach. Considering Johnny’s arcade story in Strive has shown that May’s one-sided crush is still going and played for laughs, it’s scarily possible.


Jam’s yet another character that has most of her moveset figured out, from her command dash and its follow-ups to her various flying kick attacks. Breath of Asanagi and how those flying kicks could be chained together might get changed up, but it’s also nothing so complicated that it seems like it needs to. If her parry returns it might get a more conventional input similar to what happened with Baiken’s parry. As for her supers, if Chipp’s Banki Messai is anything to go by with how it changed from a rapid-fire sequence of his normals in XX to a dedicated albeit simple animation in Xrd to a whole elaborate sequence of unique attacks in Strive, Jam’s phoenix super could follow a similar trajectory, assuming the devs are willing to make something as complicated as that again. Her other supers feel equally as likely to remain as they do to be replaced honestly.



A Guest Character


Nothing Out Of The Ordinary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km3-IT-LVv8

Now we get to something really interesting: every region besides Japan had the addition of a guest character somewhere in the top 10 of their rankings. Having a character from another franchise, whether it be from one Arc System Works owns like Blazblue, or a franchise from outside the company and possibly way more popular and well-known than Guilty Gear, would definitely help to bring in a lot of attention towards Strive and the franchise itself. Of course, that makes going into detail difficult since this could damn well include anyone, and how they’d be incorporated into the story (if at all) or they’d play is entirely up in the air. The most obvious franchises would be that of shonen manga and anime, since Guilty Gear is basically that already, but that’s still a massively wide net.


I will say that for myself, I’m a bit of a purist in that ideally, I’d prefer Guilty Gear to only have characters from itself, or at least have everyone notable enough in some way to get in before any guest characters. But for the reasons mentioned above, I can’t rightfully criticize the devs for doing what they can to get that bread and bring in a wider audience for a game series I hold dear to my heart.


It was also mentioned in the Developer’s Backyard that there were quite a few requests for a new character that I’ll mention here. I’m not entirely sure if “new character” means any character in the Guilty Gear series that has never been playable before but has appeared, or if it means making up an entirely new character just for this request. And I think that’s interesting as it tells me that Guilty Gear characters have so much appeal whether it be in design, personality, story or fighting style that there’d be that many people asking for more of that, even over already existing characters. Or at least, that’s what I interpreted from it.



Venom


A Solitude That Asks Nothing In Return – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSfV6eEd5cE

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Just like with the guest character entry, Venom placed in every region’s ranking but one (this time Korea). While definitely not unpopular, we’re really starting to get into the characters that are more likely to appear in a hypothetical season 4 or beyond. Venom is interesting in terms of whether or not he’ll reappear for a few reasons, he’s certainly fairly popular enough, but based on what we’ve heard from the devs there may be some things to consider. Apparently, it was a tough call to have him not present in the original roster, and based on the fact he hasn’t appeared as DLC yet since suggests there might be some complications to sort out.


I don’t think Venom’s place in the story is one of those things though, despite where he is right now. The After Story B in Rev 2 shows him finally giving up his life as an assassin to live as an ordinary baker, free from the life of killing he only engaged in to honour Zato-1. If living a peaceful life in the story is what it would take for someone to become exempt from being playable in a fighting game however, then Dizzy wouldn’t be playable back in Xrd. The devs could write in some kind of reason to put him back in action; perhaps the continued existence of Happy Chaos as revealed after the credits of the story mode could give Venom a reason to investigate. Alternatively, they could commit to a joke that’s popped up a few times where his billiards-based weaponry gets replaced with a baguette and pastries to knock around instead, and he remains in his baker attire and tries to bring in attention to his store the only knows how: combat.


As for who he interacts with, the obvious ones would be his former assassin colleagues, who as mentioned in Robo-Ky’s part could all come in to check up on him and see how he’s going with his new life. Also like Robo-Ky the other significant character he could encounter would be Bedman, on the count of said man (boy, really) being dead. Because of Venom. Who killed him. Though based on the fact that Delilah’s focus of revenge is on Happy Chaos, who created Ariels, who manipulated her brother into the situation that led to his death, there may be less animosity towards Venom himself even when he was the one who dealt the finishing blow; though that might just be because at the time Venom was declared dead after the fight. And of course, there’d be Robo-Ky himself, and it’d be entertaining to see more of how these two wildly conflicting personalities clash with each other as they try to run a bakery.


Reinterpreting his moveset from past games into Strive is where things get tricky, and is what I believe the one thing making the devs hesitant about how to put him in. There’s a concentrated effort in how Strive’s gameplay and characters are handled in order to make them less complicated and easier to parse for the less hardcore audience, and Venom’s ball mechanics might be clashing against this new philosophy.


If you look at what moves certain characters have lost or even how they’ve had their gameplay altered completely, characters like Testament, May, Ramlethal, Jack-O’ and Bedman, you’ll notice the running theme that all of those were about filling the screen with stuff that could be overwhelming, and Venom would fit a similar bill. On the other hand, Jack-O’s revamped moveset may be a toned down version of Venom’s in some respects, but she can still put plenty of things on screen; to say nothing of Asuka’s variety of spells capable of dominating the field. Both these cases do require substantial resource management though, so if Venom keeps his moveset as is he might have some limitations imposed on him to feel less spammy.


Honestly, it’s hard for me to imagine how exactly they’d go about implementing him if they do decide to put him, and I imagine it’s even harder for them to figure that out themselves. One thing I thought that they could add is an ability to conjure pockets out of thin air. Every game of pool has pockets to sink the balls into, and outside of his instant kill in Xrd is something that Venom has neglected. Perhaps he could set up pockets around the stage that would attract the balls he sets up and shoots; it also just makes sense for a professional like Venom to sink every ball he hits with one shot.



Order Sol


Get Down To Business – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF2OHXPtzZg

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Now this is an interesting character to talk about, namely in the fact he’s someone who’s technically already in the game. Like I discussed with Robo-Ky, those that know less about Order Sol and how he differs from regular Sol Badguy might consider him a wasted slot, while those more in the know clearly have a soft spot for the alternate version if he’s ranking this high above some other characters. The popularity he does have is arguably from his gameplay, which is where he’s most distinct from Sol.


His ability to charge up and use stronger versions of all his special moves helps to make him stand out from his future counterpart, even when some moves look superficially similar. If Order Sol does end up making it into Strive, I can’t see any reason to drastically change anything about how he fought in past games; the only thing I could think of they could add would be a way to use special moves without spending the charge gauge if you don’t want to.


Unlike Robo-Ky however, Sol and Order Sol are literally the same character, which is something that could affect his chances not just in terms of popularity but story too. Making him fit into Strive’s story and giving him an arcade mode to experience that through could be tricky, if only because him existing in the current setting of Strive feels like too big of a deal for a late DLC addition in a game that has largely concluded its narrative already. How exactly he’d come back wouldn’t be the complicated part though: the last time he appeared in the XX Accent Core story, it was because of I-No’s time traveling shenanigans, and in Strive they could easily have Happy Chaos pull off the same trick for his own amusement.


This is also assuming Order Sol would be made to exist in the current setting of Strive, since the story modes off XX also included events that happened in the past before the events of that game, including the moment Sol took back the Fireseal and his confrontation with Ky over it. If the writers don’t want the past version of Sol to exist during the current events of Strive, they could simply make his arcade mode set before the events of it, perhaps some time during the Crusades, though that could come with its own narrative complications.


One of the strangest things about Order Sol that actually could work as a justification for his inclusion in Strive is that there’s arguably a better precedent for him to exist in Strive than in the XX games. When you look at both Order Sol and Non-Order Sol in the XX games in terms of their character, it becomes apparent that the main difference between is mostly clothing, weapon and abilities: in terms of personality and attitude they’re both still largely the same. By even just the start of Strive however, Sol has grown and changed considerably as a person, having mellowed out and become more willing to open his heart up. His interaction with the fugitive at the beginning of Strive’s story mode alone shows how night and day his attitude is compared to earlier games. Having the current Sol Badguy and Order Sol from before the events of the first game both included would do a lot to show how much the Guilty Gear himself has changed over the course of the series timeline.



Raven


Worthless As The Sun Above Clouds – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2AQp-eY7CE

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Raven might not be most popular in 10th place, but I’ve always had a soft spot myself for the sadomasochistic immortal bird man and I can’t imagine many people would be upset about him making it in somehow. As far as his story goes, we last left off with him parting ways with Asuka, whom they admitted wanted to consider each other friends, and went off to become the storyteller of the world. His arcade mode would likely be him continuing with his new goal and trying to find the fulfillment he had always been lacking.


There’s plenty of folks he could interact with, the obvious ones being his friend Asuka, and his fellow former servants Jack-O’ and I-No, all of whom have parted ways to live different lives of their own choosing, though maybe less so for I-No considering the ending of Strive’s story. Other characters he’s interacted with before include Ramlethal, who’s life he saved and helped to fix back up after she was almost killed by Ariels trap, and Sol, who he still doesn’t like for reasons unclear. Another less obvious character could be Slayer, though that’s less to do with the dandy vampire himself and more to do with his wife Sharon, the only other confirmed immortal in the GG universe.


In terms of gameplay, I could see most of Raven’s specials and supers being retained without too much change. The thing I’d be most interested in is what they could do with his “Hit Me There!” special, since it’s the one move that best exemplifies his most prominent quirk. Perhaps they could give him ways to injure himself to fill up excitement gauge faster or give him new ways to utilize it. I want them to do something interesting with it because it did kinda feel like an afterthought in his Xrd gameplay, even though his love of pain is so central to his character.



Kum Haehyun


The Tuner – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtXIQYu2-WE

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We’re really getting into the less popular picks that still ranked somewhere in the survey now. Order Sol and Raven ranked somewhere in 6 and 7 regions respectively; Haehyun ranked in only 2. It doesn’t help that while she did have some prominence in Revelator’s story, it wasn’t nearly to the same degree as other Xrd newcomers. Honestly, I hope she does get in at some point since it feels like there’s a lot of potential to her character that didn’t get as explored as it could’ve in the Xrd games.


Like I mentioned before, Strive arcade stories have the potential to go into characters on a more individual level since they’re less tied to the overarching plot of the main story mode. With this in mind, I think Haehyun’s story in Strive could go further into exploring her feelings about having to pilot a robot replica of her deceased grandpa in order for her capabilities and duties to be respected, and how she deals with living a Mulan style lie. For the characters she could interact with, the most obvious ones are Johnny and May, who are among the few people that know her secret. There is however another character Haehyun could have a lot of dialogue with in her arcade story that’s less obvious yet makes a lot of sense the more you think about it, and that’s Bridget.


Both their stories are similar in many ways while also presenting in distinct ways, with the crux of both of them being around gender and expectations around them based on gender. Bridget was raised as a girl despite being AMAB due to village superstitions, which her parents always felt guilty about and felt like they were wronging her, so to assuage that guilt she became a successful bounty hunter while presenting as male to dispel the superstition and live as her parents had always wanted her to, making them proud and happy… only to then later realize that what they wanted wasn’t really the same as what she wanted, and eventually admitting that to herself and deciding to live for herself on her own terms as a woman.


Haehyun was born AFAB in a culture where women were restricted from certain roles, one of which being the tuner that she sought to become. In order to achieve this, she had to disguise herself as a male, specifically her respected grandfather, and did eventually become a world-renowned and respected tuner, while also having to put in a lot of work to maintain a lie. There are many broad strokes in both these girls’ stories: them both being born a certain way in a culture whose specific traditions around an individual’s sex impacted them and clashed with their own wants as they grew up, and having to live as achieving men in order to appease those around them. Though of course the way those particular beats play it is vastly different between them, there is still some common ground between them that could lead to interesting discussion and character development for either of them.


If that was a lot to unpack, then keep worrying because we also have Haehyun’s playstyle to go over. What made her distinct in Xrd was having Street Fighter style link combos instead of gatling, and a few special moves that changed based on specific execution requirements, making her complex even with what on the surface seems like a simple moveset. You could probably guess how this might clash with Strive’s philosophy of making things less execution intense and complex. But without those complexities, how would Haehyun stand out amongst the roster? The solution I thought of was to keep her more traditional looking moveset as is without all the execution stuff but have that complemented with a greater emphasis on her tuning abilities.


The art of tuning in Guilty Gear is reading and controlling the flow of ki in the world, with multiple uses from manipulation of matter, to strengthening or weakening objects and people. A pretty unique ability and concept that felt somewhat underutilized in Haehyun’s Xrd moveset, with only really present in her tuning ball attacks, that one super where she can move the opponent around, and her instant kill. I feel like giving her more ways to utilize tuning as part of her moveset to go with traditional and simple looking moves would be a good compromise for taking out the heavy execution aspect of her past playstyle. Maybe she could apply debuffs to her opponent that make them forcefully move towards her, or maybe increase their weight to prevent them from moving around so much.


It’ll be much different to her previous incarnation, but we’ve already seen plenty of that with a few other Xrd characters like Ramlethal, Jack-O’ and Bedman. Another suggestion from Night was that her playstyle would have specific complexities from other fighting game series like Tekken or King of Fighters to either replace or go along with the Street Fighter combo style she had in Xrd.



Zappa


Good Manners And Customs – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eUAJYpwPSk

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The last of the living characters from XX not yet playable since, and the least likely to get in, with poor Zappa placing in only the Japan rankings. I feel like this could be attributed to him having a bit of a goofier edge in a series with lots of more conventionally appealing characters. Like Robo-Ky, Zappa appeared prominently as an NPC in Revelator’s story, and even had an after story in Rev 2 dedicated to him solving the case of the ruined pudding (with an ending that has to be seen to be believed). His character changed a lot from XX to Xrd, no longer just being an unlucky everyman, but someone who managed to find a way to scientifically quantify his own ghostly possession, invent a new scientific theory and free himself of S-Ko’s possession and antics. Now having earned a spot on Illyria’s scientific team, where could he go from here?


Well, if we want him to be a playable character that’s anything like how he was before, we need him to get possessed again. I think a way for them to do this without undoing Zappa’s progress would be him taking some time to think about S-Ko and the other ghosts now that he’s no longer possessed by them and start feeling sympathetic towards them and try to understand and help them move onto the afterlife. The main focus would be on S-Ko though, since the other ghosts were always more friendly and sympathetic to Zappa himself, presumably just puppeteering him from S-Ko’s bullying. His arcade mode could involve him willingly get himself possessed again both to try understand and help the ghosts and also for the sake of science.


As for who he’d encounter, the most significant would be Faust, a man who had helped him in the past and had worked with during the events of Revelator. Now in Strive, Faust as become a ghost himself, and Zappa could feel compelled to help him out as he had done for him before, maybe try to get Faust to help diagnose S-Ko and bring her peace, potentially convincing Faust that he’s finally done more good for the world than he has bad and move on himself; or at least set up for this kind of conclusion. Another person he could meet could be A.B.A., assuming she’s playable by then of course, since they had a bit of ship tease in the past and could help the girl finally move on from her crush on Paracelsus. Besides them he could also have unique dialogue with Ky and Leo, both fellow kings alongside Daryl, whom Zappa now works closely with. And of course, Goldlewis would be plenty interested in the “U.M.A.”s surrounding the meek Australian man.


Zappa’s playstyle in the XX games could most quickly be summarized as “randomized stance character”, and I feel like faithfully retaining what defines him while also making him fit into Strive’s gameplay philosophy would involve simply dropping the “randomized” part. To fit with his better understanding and control over his ghostly possessors, Zappa could now freely switch between the dog, three ghosts and sword moves in past games, though I can imagine the trade-off would be each mode having less moves. The orb collecting that would be used to summon Raoh would also likely be dropped in favour of simply making it an install super.


Losing his more complex elements might make Zappa less unique but allowing him to freely switch between stances could offer new ways to play him and help make up for that. Also as an aside that’s not too relevant to gameplay: for some reason I can imagine his new idle pose to be him facing the opponent but having his body dangle around like he’s a puppet on invisible strings. Something that keeps the supernatural, uncanny angle, but also makes it look like Zappa’s in more control now.



Answer


Enough Is Enough – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNWLPMQbmRI

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Just like Zappa, Answer only ranked in one region (this time being Africa), and so at this point there’d have to be a season 5 of DLC for there to be any chance for him to appear. It doesn’t help that he had little in the way of story relevance, courtesy of being a late addition to Xrd. If he does somehow manage to get in, there’s still plenty they could do with his character in his arcade mode given his background. Before Chipp came to South Africa and turned it into a kingdom to become president of, Answer was a gang member who scoffed at the idealistic vision and dreams the American ninja had, only to be eventually convinced and become his loyal right-hand man, however exasperated he gets at his antics.


His story could go more into his past and how he’s changed, and how he feels about whether things like peace and prosperity for everyone is possible, or if that being impossible is any less reason to try pursuing it anyway. The most obvious character for him to interact with is his boss Chipp, and besides him I admittedly can’t think of anyone else that’s significant enough to him to interact with.


Translating his gameplay from Xrd to Strive would be somewhat tricky if only for the fact that as established before, Strive puts less emphasis on aerial combat and therefore has removed aerial moves from characters before. Arguably one of Answer’s most standout moves is his ability to place floating scrolls in the air to hang onto, and move and attack from, so they might change that around to something that’s a little closer to the ground. Besides that, they could also give him more stuff to do with his shadow clones, maybe give him a move that summons a clone to put them on standby for some kind of attack. With instant kills no longer present in Strive, I’d like it if Answer got a super move that would involve summoning his giant scarf snake (that also wears a tie) just so it could still appear.



Gabriel


Riches In Me – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB12h2VnVIs

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Finally, we have the last character to appear anywhere in the survey results, and Gabriel just barely manages to scrape by at 10th place in Europe’s rankings. Not bad at all, considering he’s never been playable in the series despite being present since the first game. Having been around that long probably helped to build up intrigue, especially when it was revealed he has some connection to the famed badass vampire Slayer, which would then pay off in the Xrd stories where we finally see what he’s capable of.


Like his fighting buddy Slayer, Gabriel doesn’t come off as someone with any kind of personal struggle and more so someone that gives guidance to others. As the leader of Zepp, his arcade story could also involve discussion around that and how it interacts with the other nations the world while being so distinct with the continued use of blacktech. The obvious characters for Gabriel to interact with are his right hand man Potemkin, and Slayer as mentioned before. Outside of them, there are other people involved with politics and national security in some way like Ky, Leo, Goldlewis and Giovanna. The most notable one however would be Chipp, with whom he ended up talking with a lot and becoming unlikely allies in Revelator.


Figuring out how Gabriel would play actually stumps me a bit. We’ve seen a few moves of his, but not nearly enough to fill a moveset or even get a concrete what his gameplan would be. He’s clearly as physically strong and agile as Slayer, and was the one who created the Potemkin Buster technique, but the question then becomes how he’d distinguish himself from either of them. All I really know for certain is that Agni X has to be a super move.



Kliff Undersn / Justice


Pride And Glory – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqRNW5uwgTY

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Meet Again – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJjsZECmv9s

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We’re out of all the characters that appeared in the survey, which now leaves us with the playable characters that didn’t make the cut, the ones that couldn’t even beat out someone that is currently still unplayable in any game in the series. I’m making the decision to include Kliff and Justice in the same section for the simple reason that both of them have a lot in common when it comes to considering them for Strive DLC, or more specifically the reasons going against their inclusion.


On the surface level the most obvious reason is that they’re both canonically dead, and in response you could quickly point to Zato, Faust and Bedman, all who have canonically died too yet are still playable in Strive and present in the story, as counterevidence to that particular point mattering. I do think there is more of a distinction to be made here though, since in the case of the “undead” characters that are in Strive there is a reason for their return. Part of it is for legacy and gameplay reasons, with Zato and Faust being part of that could be considered the “World Warriors” of Guilty Gear, having been around since the first game, and also filling important anime fighting gameplay niches of the puppet fighter and the random crap fighter.


The other part is that there are still stories to tell with these characters, and how both they’re deaths and undeaths are significant to themselves and those around them. By comparison, Kliff and Justice don’t really have much of a reason to come back from the grave. Kliff lived a full life and everything he fought for is safely in the hands of the new generation, while Justice is too big of a deal if she didn’t stay dead for two reasons. The first is Justice as the supreme gear, the one that led the gear rebellion and almost wiped out humanity; for such a significant figure it’d be way too out of place to put her in Strive as just an afterthought. The second is Justice as Aria, which the series and especially Strive have gone out of its way to hammer in the fact that she’s well and truly gone, and even when given the chance to come back refuses, and instead wants both herself and Frederick to move on. For thematic reasons, these are both characters that should be allowed to rest in peace.


Of course, the same things said about how Order Sol could be brought back, either through Happy Chaos’s shenanigans or simply setting their arcade stories in the past, could be argued as applicable here too. However way you could spin it, it doesn’t change the fact these two just aren’t as comparatively popular enough to get in unless Arc System Works really does end up making Guilty Gear Ultimate. They aren’t necessarily despised as characters, hell I know plenty of people that really dig Justice (I’m one of them) but compared to so many other characters they just don’t have the same appeal. In a series full of ripped handsome dudes and fanservice-laden babes, the little old man and giant magic cyborg don’t have the same kind of pull.


Even more than who they are as characters though is the experience of playing against them, or rather how bogus said experience was. Kliff’s ridiculous damage and Justice filling the screen with nuclear blasts have made them both infamous in Plus R, and that’s when they’re at their most balanced! Of course, one would point out that if they make into Strive then their movesets would likely be drastically overhauled to make them more balanced and less agonizing to fight against, but they have to be considered to get in Strive in the first place. With over 10 other characters yet to get in that are more popular than these up for consideration, Kliff and Justice don’t have as strong of a foot in the door for them to get included in Strive, let alone get the chance to shine in a new light.


And in terms of gameplay, it’s hard to imagine the specifics given how much they’d likely be overhauled, so I’d only really the say broad strokes would be that Kliff that still has a bunch of moves swinging that big thang around, and Justice would have plenty of intimidating and powerful looking attacks befitting of a boss character, while also being just as slow and punishable as boss attacks tend to be.



Izuna


Hiruandan – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PycC6ufjV5w

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Now we move onto the characters that have only appeared in Guilty Gear 2 Overture, a canon mainline game whose events and characters are relevant to the fighting games to come after but is itself not a fighting game and is about as well-known and popular as you’d expect in a fighting game series. For these characters the main hurdle is the fact that they have yet to appear in a proper fighting game before Strive, unlike Sin and Raven (and technically Asuka too), and naturally aren’t as popular as those that have been in the fighting games.


I’m talking about Izuna as the first of these three for the same reason I talked about A.B.A. in the first part, in that he’s the only living character from Overture not to appear properly since. He was briefly mentioned in Revelator’s story as being able to help the good guys stop the bad guy, that being unable to be contacted leading to speculation that the bad guy got to him first. I doubt that what they mean by “got to him” was that he was killed, since even for a relatively obscure character it’d be out of place just to off him with no fanfare or reaction from his allies.


In terms of story, I can mostly see him just wandering about and meeting characters he wouldn’t have got the chance to meet in Overture, stretching his legs after getting out of whatever situation Ariels put him. As for who he meets, it could be back up with his allies from Overture (Sol, Ky, Sin and Raven), and brief interactions with the new Valentines (after his less pleasant encounters with the original). Given his fondness towards Japanese culture despite not really being Japanese himself, he could have common ground with Chipp and Nagoriyuki, and possibly with actual Japanese characters like Baiken and Anji.


When looking at how to adapt Overture characters into the fighting game genre, I’m looking at how Sin and Raven were handled to base my speculation on. Overture is a much different game, so there’s only a handful of moves that were retained and adapted to fit into Xrd for both of them and then into Strive for Sin. What they both also had in common where mechanics tied to their lore and personality; for Sin it’s his big appetite, and for Raven it’s his sadomasochism and immortality. I’ll use this same philosophy for Izuna and the following two characters.


In the case of Izuna, he’s very much the trickster type (as befitting of a fox spirit), so his general game plan would likely be around trying to confuse and trip up his opponents and having some of the special moves he had in Overture be adapted into his moveset in some way. He’s also known to have advanced teleportation magic which could fit into evading and pulling fast ones on the enemy. However, if looking at how Testament’s teleport was changed to require set-up, or how Chipp’s teleport was removed entirely, then it’s likely there’d be some limitation imposed on the wily fox spirit to keep him from popping in and out everywhere. He’s also shown to be able use ice magic with Iron Wire Seal move, and as I mentioned before with Dizzy, I’m a fan of dedicated ice-users in fighting games, and if it feels too radical to make her into that than it might be more palatable to make Izuna into that.



Dr. Paradigm


Intellect, Reason, And The Wild – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-Tl1tOAI7g

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Unlike Izuna, Paradigm did actually appear pretty prominently in the Xrd games and even had a cameo at the end of Strive’s story, fulfilling the role of the smart guy that helps exposit the details of magic and how they fit into the plot. Despite maintaining story relevance more than most other characters, that doesn’t exactly translate into popularity, and more than his relative obscurity it’s his design that works against him in this case. He’s a bit more on the scrimbo-bimblo side of things in appearance, which makes him stand out among the rest of the cast in a way that makes him less appealing.


I think it’s kind of a shame, because I think Paradigm having such a distinct design that goes against the usual conventions of GG character design or even that of most fighting games in general is really neat and a nice way to add some variety to the cast. I also think he could help fill in the niche that Bedman did in Xrd, being an insufferable genius archetype that always has a lot to say to his enemies after he beats them.


One of Dr. Paradigm’s defining traits in terms of personality is his distrust towards humans and how they would treat gears, which even after allying with mankind in their fight against Ariels is still present. After the events of Another Story, where Dizzy reveals herself to humanity and seems to be accepted by them, paving the way for peace between mankind and gears, Paradigm’s arcade story could be about him having to admit that things have changed, and that his “us vs them” mentality is no longer applicable or useful. As for his interactions with other characters, there’s the characters mentioned in Izuna’s part, but he could also have some neat dialogue with fellow gears Dizzy and Testament too. Testament in particular used to be like Paradigm, a gear that distrusted humans, but eventually opening their heart to them and deciding to live a new life among them. Oh, and there's Zappa too, since they both worked together during Revelator's story.


As mentioned before, Asuka’s gameplay in Strive shows that the devs are more willing to get more experimental with how characters can fight now that it’s later into the game’s lifespan, and Paradigm could be another character that’s similarly big-brained like the Gear-Maker. His moves in Overture were fairly unconventional, mainly relying on sending his fairy assistant Bonnie to set bombs and drop rocks on enemies, and this could translate into Strive to make him a zoning character that’s all about setting up things in the area to try keep things under control. Given how much his gameplay in Overture relied on having a large army of servants to overwhelm his foes rather than confront them head on, I could imagine him having a couple of summonable creatures to attack with too.



Valentine


The Mask Does Not Laugh – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El83rUpCaSg

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The last character left from Overture is the original Valentine, who not only has her Overture-only appearance and being canonically dead going against her, but there’s also two other Valentines (and likely Elphelt appearing sometime too) that she not only shares some traits with but could also just generally make it harder to distinguish, especially those not already familiar with her. Perhaps if she was included she could be referred to as something like “Valentine Prime”, but out of every playable character in a canon Guilty Gear game she’s arguably the biggest if.


Bringing her back into Strive’s story would be a similar deal to Order Sol, Kliff and Justice: either be brought back by Happy Chaos for a goof, or have her story set before she died. The latter could be framed as a story told by her former servant Lucifero to his new master Ramlethal, telling her what her “sister” was like. In the former case she’d have more people to interact with, whether it be her enemies in Overture, the other Valentines, or even with Happy Chaos or I-No given their connection with her “mother” Ariels. Though much like Justice, Valentine is a character that narratively “should” remain dead in terms of driving the point that Aria, the person she’s a clone of and arguably the closest to her besides Jack-O’, is supposed to be gone from this world permanently.


Valentine has a few moves and traits that are already present in the other Valentines but could still have a distinct moveset from either of them. Her playstyle in Overture was that of a zoner, shooting a variety of projectiles at her enemies, while also having unique aerial mobility options. Two of her moves, Remove the Chain of Chiron, and Calvados, would be given to Jack-O’ in Xrd, but she would also lose them in Strive (or in the case of the former, have it changed to be only one projectile), so she could take those back for herself. In terms of other abilities that could be incorporated into her moveset, she has an army of servants she can summon, is able to brainwash others to do her bidding, can create seals and barriers, and is able to transform into a giant mechanical form resembling Justice, and then even further into a massive flying fortress.



Ariels


Diva – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQIPLfLmUuE

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Now past every mainline playable character, there are still a few notable NPCs in the Guilty Gear universe that are worth discussing in terms of possibly being playable. There are plenty of characters that have shown up with notable designs, powers, weapons or even significant roles in the story, but I feel like at this point there’d only be a handful that are really important enough to be considered. The first and most noteworthy is Ariels, a.k.a. the Universal Will. Quite possibly the most confounding character to not be playable in Guilty Gear, considering she’s almost wholly responsible for the entire plot of the series.


In an extreme example of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, Ariels was initially created by the Original (now Happy Chaos) to help guide humanity to prosperity. It didn’t work out. Not only did Ariels herself commit many atrocities, but the responses to her by the Original and his disciples, those being the creation of the gears to I-No, who would both end up turning against humanity and almost totally devastating, prove that the road to hell was capable of splitting into multiple paths. Her true face and intentions would be laid to bare in Revelator, and ultimately thwarted in the same game. Left alive, but very clearly defeated as seen in Strive’s story. It will forever remain baffling to me that she was never made playable in Xrd. Ariels may no longer be a threat in Strive’s setting, but part of me does want her to eventually be playable if for no other reason than it feels like she deserves to be in considering how important she is the series.


Which leads us to the first hurdle in what it would mean to make her playable: the arcade story. Ariels is another character that’s way too big of a deal to involve in the story as just a late DLC addition. There’s also the important matter of her being sealed in maximum security, which raises questions on how she’d even be out and about. We can’t even use the same excuse that was brought up with Order Sol, Kliff, Justice and Valentine where the story could be set before the events of Revelator, since it’s a major plot point that pretty much no-one knew her true identity until Revelator.


If we wanted to a cliché reason, then I’d say that’d be making it so her being out in the world and interacting with other characters is all some kind of simulation, whether one created by her or the ones keeping her at bay. The more interesting options would be her actually being allowed to roam free as part of potential rehabilitation, or being let out by Happy Chaos once again up to no good and doing things for laughs. Between her former enemies like Sol, Ky and Asuka, to her current ones like I-No and Happy Chaos, to her own daughters that she’s done much to earn the contempt of, there’s plenty of characters Ariels could have significant dialogue with.


The other hurdle is how she’d even play. In addition to advanced magic, Ariels has been depicted fighting with a sword and gun, and while those could be interpreted as connecting her with Ramlethal and Elphelt respectively, I think there’d need to be much more for her to really stand out. Considering how much Ariels character revolves around her relationship and opinions on humanity, I’ve actually thought of two movesets: one for Strive obviously, but another one that I could have imagined would be her moveset in Xrd if she were playable then.


To go with the latter first, Ariels in Xrd is defined both by her utter contempt for humanity, and her going into fits of childish behaviour and being cheeky, and I think a way to represent all that in gameplay would be her to be able to conjure a voodoo doll of sorts of her enemy, able to damage and combo them through attacking the doll, bouncing all over the place as it’s hit, even doing increased damage through hitting them both with attacks from her gun, or a lunging sword thrust like the Stinger move from Devil May Cry that could pierce both.


For a potential moveset in Strive, that would have to be done away with entirely to line up with her completely changed personality. Her defeat and being rid of Happy Chaos’s corruption have mellowed her out significantly, to the point where she actually encouraged the heroes to stop I-No before she ruins humanity in her own way. I feel like an arcade story about Ariels would be her trying to properly understand humanity, after realizing she was in the wrong and trying to change.


To represent this in gameplay, I could imagine her having some kind of meter that would change how she fights as it fills up. As an artificial being compared to a robot, her sense of strict logical thinking could be represented by having moves that are safe and lacking risk, yet conversely lacking in reward. The initial understanding Ariels came to about humans was that they are irrational beasts, and perhaps that much wouldn’t change itself, but rather if she considers that a truly bad thing. So to represent that, the meter would fill up with a move where she analyses the opponent, and slowly becomes “human” herself, which would translate into having more reckless and less sensible moves but would yield greater reward.



Vernon


Storyteller – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg8_7SfwdfY

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The president of the USA doesn’t look like obvious fighter material, but on top of the fact that Vernon had a lot of screen time and played such a big role Strive’s story, he’s actually proven he can hold his own pretty well. He fought in the Crusades with a large sword, and in the current day has a prosthetic arm that can even function as a cannon. That said, he admits himself he’s gotten out of shape, so I figure if he becomes playable part of his story would have him get training and new equipment from Giovanna and Goldlewis after the attack on the White House, just so he can feel more prepared to defend himself in the future.


His arcade mode could revolve around the seemingly fruitless pursuit of peace he’s strived to help build a future towards, and the characters he could interact with along the way could include other political figures, and those that have fought to keep him safe like Giovanna, Goldlewis and Sol. He also took a selfie with Johnny in Revelator, so that’s something.


As for what Vernon’s moveset would be and how he’d utilise what he’s got, I imagine him to err on the side of practicality before anything, being so conventional in his fighting style that he’d stick out amongst the roster for lacking the usual flair. Another option would be him utilizing his love of football, maybe being something similar to Brian Battler from the King of Fighters series.



Daryl


Dear Song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRg33-x1CqY

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The third king of Illyria isn’t as popular as Ky or Leo both in and out of the universe of Guilty Gear, but Daryl did play pretty substantial roles in the stories of Revelator and Strive. His story could involve him contemplating whether his infamously pragmatic approach is as worth as he’s constantly asserted, and if perhaps he could change his approach to governing to better win the trust of his people.


Like Gabriel and Vernon, most of who Daryl could interact with would be major political figures, and it would also include Millia and Zato given that he allowed them to work officially within Illyria. Finally, there’s Sol Badguy, a man that Daryl admits has shattered his belief in heroes and miracles.


As for how he’d fight, I’m kinda just making stuff up since the closest thing to a fight he’s been in would be him taking one of Happy Chaos’s guns and pointing at him. As for what I’m working with, I’d like to imagine he also uses a weapon or weapons that are cross-shaped in some way, to match with the other king’s weapons. In Daryl’s case, because he’s more on the pragmatic than heroic or boisterous side, his weapon could be something like a knife or gun, maybe both or multiple of each. Something that emphasises practicality and underhanded tactics over anything honourable. Besides that, his gameplan could be about him trying to get the advantage over his opponent in some way and keep it that way, maybe through traps and moves that are meant to confuse and trip them up.



There are other NPCs that stand out in some way and have featured prominently at some point in the story modes of Guilty Gear that could possibly be candidates. The Conclave members (especially the only remaining member Chronus) that were the main antagonists of Xrd Sign, Crow Kuruwaba from the XX games who got up to plenty of no good, hell I even mentioned Sharon before in Slayer’s section and her potential as an assist character, and who knows? Maybe even she herself could be a playable character. But it is very unlikely that we’ll get this far into the deep cuts, and as such I don’t feel enough motivation to go in-depth into them like I have other NPCs.


Besides all the characters that have appeared in the mainline canon games, there are still plenty more that have appeared in spin-offs and supplementary materials. Of course, their canonicity is dubious and between that and them being naturally more obscure than every other character I’ve mentioned up until this point makes it near impossible for them to get in as far as I’m concerned. Even still, I do think they are interesting to talk about, so I figured why not and decided to write a bit more about a few stand-out picks.



Fanny


Fanny Theme Arrange – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8u1Ca32nj8

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Appearing in the Guilty Gear Petit games, Fanny is a nurse and fan of Dr. Baldhead (i.e. Faust) to the point of emulating some of his moves like his pogo stick attacks, and also using her comically large syringe as a weapon. A character that only appeared in some WonderSwan spin-offs naturally wouldn’t be on anyone’s radar, but curiously enough, she was actually one of the characters to appear in the voting poll for Revelator alongside every other playable character in past mainline games that hadn’t appeared by the console release, including Overture. Maybe she was put there as a joke pick, but the fact that she was put there alongside canon characters is still interesting.


In terms of story, there’s plenty they could do with her interest in Faust, especially now that he’s changed as drastically as he has: maybe she finds out his true identity and tries to help him similar to my speculation about Zappa. As for Fanny’s fighting style, being a clone character of Faust might make her inclusion questionable, but considering one of the moves Faust lost in Strive was his pogo stick, she could keep instead and have her gameplay revolve around that in some way.



Leopaldon


Kill DOG As A Sacrifice To Dog – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsZjnYoUUKs

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I mentioned before how Dr. Paradigm had an unconventional appearance by Guilty Gear character standards, but the final boss of Isuka, Leopaldon, is so out there that it’s actually a bit hard to figure out what you’re even looking at when you see it. There isn’t even any story attached to it, it’s just a massive gear that lives in Antarctica. Quite frankly the only reasons I’m even mentioning it is because it was something of a major character in Isuka, which I feel is one of the more well-known and noteworthy spin-offs, which A.B.A. did also originate from, the fact that I’ve always felt Guilty Gear could use more big body characters and Leopaldon has the biggest body of them all, and purely because of the sheer weirdness of it all.



Judgment


Final Boss Theme – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LO60CBjrg0

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The other particular noteworthy spin-off I think is Guilty Gear Judgment, and at the centre of it is the final boss of the same name. Once a man named Raymond, he was an amoral scientist that wanted the power of a god and became a powerful being able to fight with magic and floating steel plates attached to a chain. Him dying at the end of the game, courtesy of trying to possess a dead god, is less my concerns since the nature of Judgment’s (the game) canon is dubious, so if they wanted to bring him back, they could just ignore the dying part.


The thing that stands out to me when considering him is the fact that unlike every other villain, even the most cruel and destructive ones, Judgment is the one character that’s written without any redeeming qualities. Every other antagonist from Justice to I-No, from the Conclave to Ariels, from Asuka to Happy Chaos (or, That Man to That Man), all of them were well-intentioned at some point but ended up committing heinous acts or changing into something much different and extreme. Judgment on the other hand has very little in the way of that same tense, which oddly makes him stand out in a way.



Robo-Ky II

Finally, we have what I consider the most interesting pick, despite seemingly just being another version of Robo-Ky. Appearing only in Isuka, Robo-Ky II had a moveset that could be customed with the moves of other characters, which not only meant you could turn him into a wacky character to fight with, but also because he had unique sprites for every move he imitated. Having one Robo-Ky is obviously enough, and in his section I mentioned one more thing they could do with his moveset that I feel would be really interesting but also way too out there: this is that thing. Give Robo-Ky a move that lets him copy one of his opponent’s moves which he’d then have his own unique animation for. This sounds cool on paper but with some extra thought you could easily see some issues with this implementation.


There’s the balancing side of things, since it means there’s an extra thing to consider with every match-up that he has with every other character. There’s also the fact that maybe having Robo-Ky’s moveset restricted like this in a way where he can only do certain things based on who he’s fighting, which players would have limited control, that might just not be something design-wise the devs want to do. And of course, there’s the animation side to it. Making a ton of unique sprites for each move must have taken quite some work, but making individual 2d sprites is easier than making a 3d model. The benefits of 3d models are that once they’re made, they can be posed to make the animations, which lends them more towards elegance when it comes to animation. Making a bunch of 3d models of each move that Robo-Ky could potentially copy would not just be a lot of work but would also only be there for a couple of frames and only in specific scenarios, which flies in the face of both elegance and budget efficiency.


Dragon Ball FighterZ did have something of solution to this with Android 21, where her copy ability was streamlined in that what moves she took from her enemy depended on what category they were in (Saiyan, android, etc.) and the fact that being in a 3-on-3 fighting game meant she had more moves to gain, but Strive is a 1-on-1 game and I feel like every character is so distinct that it’d be too hard to categorize them in the same way without homogenising them to the point of making it clear it’s their abilities specifically that are being copied, and at that point it feels pointless. It was a really fun and novel gimmick in Isuka, but I just can’t imagine there being a place for this kind of idea in Strive.



And that finally does it. Every character in the Guilty Gear franchise that I think is worth talking about as a potential playable character in Strive. Technically this isn’t every character, not even every character that’s ever been playable or has interesting abilities or has had a major role in a story. There are the characters from the (ambiguously canon) manga Guilty Gear Xtra, like Tyr, Mizuha and Geena. There’s all the enemies and bosses that appeared in Judgment that had a bunch of unique designs, some of which appeared as playable characters in Raid of Arms spinoff. There are the Zako-Dan trio, a bunch of comic relief goons that acted as enemies in the beat-em-up side mode in Isuka that could also be unlocked, and had as wide of a moveset as a beat-em-up goon could be expected to have: if you combined all three into one character you still wouldn’t have a complete enough moveset for a Guilty Gear fighter.


To get even more wild than that there's also the Kakusei versions of Sol and Ky from Isuka, which are just Mugen levels of busted versions of the two main characters that are definitely not getting in for obvious reasons. There’s Chimaki, Sin’s weird stuffed toy thing that was a playable character in some Nintendo DSi spin-off which is the only reason he’s listed as a playable character in the Guilty Gear wiki which is the only reason I’m even mentioning him. And finally there’s Gig, the final boss of the DS spinoff Dust Strikers who’s a massive gear that’s even less feasible to implement than Leopaldon, and the only reason I even bring it up is because Dust Strikers of all games was the very first Guilty Gear game I ever played and so has some sort of weird relevance to me.


Like I said at the start, we don’t even know if we’re getting any more of seasons of DLC after the third one. With all these characters that I’ve talked at length about, including those very unlikely to get in, it brings into question what the point even is of going this hard into it. But you know what? I did end up enjoying myself writing all this. Guilty Gear is so dense of a franchise that even the non-playable obscure characters are fascinating to talk about. And like I said before, I really like pretty much every character that’s ever been playable, and even a couple of them that have yet to be playable. This is something I’m just really passionate about, and it feels nice to have finally written something that isn’t just me borderline vent posting.


The next DLC character for Strive will be released this December (and who at this point we can already be certain of who that can be) while the next two are set to release some time next year, and whichever characters they turn out to be I’m not gonna pat myself on the back for guessing they could appear, considering I’ve pretty much covered every possible inclusion. It’s more so how they end up being implemented that I’m interested in seeing how much it matches up to my own predictions, and whether or not I get to brag about calling it.


As for what’s next after this, I’ve decided to put my current writing projects on hiatus. Actually writing stuff here is nice but I want to stretch more of my creative muscles a bit too, so I’m gonna be starting a bit of a smaller project that’s almost something of a prototype for things I’ll eventually get around to. I’m not gonna stress myself out by making the deadline the end of this year, so either until then or if I get it done before that, take care everybody ♥

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